Tim Seeley

You know Blade, right? He's the Daywalker, a vampire hunter with some vampiric abilities of his own. Grew up in a brothel. Hunted Dracula. Hung out with Dr. Strange a lot. Well, rethink all that, because Marvel has announced a new series at San Diego Comic-Con from writer Tim Seeley and artist Logan Faerber, which presents Eric Brooks in a whole new way: through his daughter.

That's right, Blade has a daughter, and she'll be a big part of the focus of the new series, as she and her dad will apparently go on some macabre adventures together.

If you were into He-Man and the Masters of the Universe back in the '80s, then you might remember that the toys came with minicomics that provided some additional story about bare-chested heroes fighting equally bare-chested (and surprisingly muscular) skeletons --- and if you were really paying attention, you might recall that those comics featured some early work from legendary creators like Mark Texeira and Bruce Timm.

If that's the case, you might be tempted to dig through toy bins at conventions and try to put together a run yourself, but fortunately, Dark Horse is saving us all the trouble. This October, it's releasing the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Minicomic Collection, a whopping 1,232-page hardcover that collects every single minicomic from the classic toy line, bumped up to 6" x 9" and presented in production order.

This week sees the debut of Effigy, a new Vertigo title from Grayson/Revival scribe Tim Seeley and Madame Xanadu artist Marley Zarcone. The series follows Chondra Jackson, a woman who, as a child, starred in a beloved kids' sci-fi/mystery TV show, and now lives a quiet life as a police officer in small-town Ohio – until she gets pulled into a mystery involving ritual sacrifices, a shadowy celebrity-worshipping cult, and pieces of her past coming back to haunt her.

To mark the launch of the book, we spoke with Seeley about his work process, his inspirations, and how the world of celebrities and comics intersect.

Nightwing is comics' hottest male superhero. His superior hotness is a fact so indisputable that, when we compiled our list of the 50 Sexiest Guys In Comics a while back, there was never any serious doubt that he would come out on top. His appeal is not only recognized by fans, but also by creators and even by publisher DC, which has been known to pander to his fans on several occasions. In an industry that doesn't generally make time for the female gaze, Dick Grayson has emerged as one of the medium's few male sex symbols.

But what is it about Dick Grayson that sets him apart among the macho mannequins of superhero comics? Is it his personality? His history? His character design? His butt? ComicsAlliance spoke to Dick Grayson experts Tim Seeley and Devin Grayson, and several of the character's fans, and undertook an intense study of the source material, to get to the lovely bottom of this great question.

As Vertigo's two currently longest-running series head to a close -- Bill Willingham's Fables and Mike Carey and Peter Gross's The Unwritten -- the DC imprint is doubtless looking for new series with long-term potential to run alongside FBP, Astro City, and American Vampire.

At New York Comic-Con on Friday the publisher announced two titles that might fit the bill, both from DC writers making their Vertigo debut. Grayson writer Tim Seeley will team with former Madame Xanadu artist Marley Zarcone on Effigy, while once and future Secret Six author Gail Simone and former 2000 AD artist Jonathan Davis-Hunt are the team behind Clean Room.

I'll be honest, folks: I have very little interest in Future's End as a line-wide crossover. DC Comics' tactic of derailing their books into weird tangents every September, a tradition that goes back to the relaunch of the "New 52" universe, never quite works as well as I want it to, and when you throw in the fact that we're peering into the dim and distant future of a world that we've only actually had for three years, and, well, no thanks, I'm good. What really had me worried, though, was Grayson.

I've really been enjoying what Tom King, Tim Seeley and Stephen Mooney have been doing with this book over the first few issues, but as I think we all know, there's no faster way to derail a brand new comic's momentum than to drop it into a crossover after two months. I almost didn't bother to read it, but I'm glad I did. It turns out that King, Seeley and Mooney have taken their Future's End tie-in as an opportunity to produce one of the most enjoyable single issues I've read in a long while.

Each week, ComicsAlliance’s Chris Sims and Matt Wilson host the War Rocket Ajax podcast, their online audio venue for interviews with comics creators, reviews of the books of the week, and whatever else they want to talk about. ComicsAlliance is offering clips of the comics-specific segments of the show several days before the full podcast goes up at WarRocketAjax.com on Mondays.

This week, Chris and Matt start off by gushing about Grayson #2 by Tim Seeley, Tom King, and Mikel Janin. Then, they do pretty much the opposite to Genius #1 by Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman and Afua Richardson. Then, it's back to gushing about Moon Knight #6 by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire!

Dick Grayson is one of those characters that's been rumored to be on DC Comics' chopping block for well over a decade now, so like a lot of readers, I expected his unmasking in Forever Evil to be followed by a quick and ignominious death at the hands of, I don't know, Deathstroke or Harley Quinn or somebody. When it was announced that it would instead be leading into a new series where he'd be ditching the Nightwing identity and joining up with Spyral as an international super-spy, I was actually pretty excited. There's a lot of possibility there, and if it was done right, it could take advantage of what the New 52 reboot had to offer by doing something that we hadn't seen before with that character, something that would be fresh and exciting even for a major DC character who's been around since 1940.

With the first issue of Grayson, Tim Seeley, Tom King & Mikel Janin and cover artist Andrew Robinson have done their level best at doing just that, and they've pulled it off. This is a book that jumps straight into the action, that's not afraid to drop some really, really weird stuff on you right in the first issue, and the end result is one of the strongest new titles since the New 52 got its start in 2011.

Last week, the news broke that Dick Grayson would no longer be operating as Nightwing, instead being relaunched into a new spy-themed adventure series called Grayson, by Tim Seeley, Tom King and Mikel Janin. Spinning out of the events of Forever Evil that saw his identity revealed to the world, the new series finds the former Robin, former Nightwing and former Batman (dude has a long resumé) joining up with Spyral, a mysterious organization that first appeared in Batman Incorporated.

To find out more about Grayson's transition from superhero to superspy, I talked to Seeley, who has been working with King, a former CIA counterterrorism officer, to bring the series to life. In the interview, we discuss Dick Grayson's role as a "free spirit" who isn't tied to Gotham City in the way that Batman is, the writing process of Batman Eternal, and even the "G" on Dick's chest.

In the series Grayson debuting July 2, Dick Grayson is hanging up his domino mask and taking on a new life as an undercover spy. The series will be written by Tim Seeley (Revival, Batman Eternal) and Tom King, a former CIA counterterrorism officer who wrote the superhero book The Once Crowded Sky.

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